Innovation for modern EHS operations and managing environmental compliance continues to encompass enhanced technologies like the cloud, Software as a Service (SaaS) and artificial intelligence (AI). However, at the user level that benefits EHS professionals most directly, technology has also delivered enhancements such as automation and process efficiency, digital agility, and smarter ways of working and overcoming obstacles.
These innovative breakthroughs for compliance management and reporting, typically in the form of high tech software and enterprise technology systems, showcase the marks of EHS digital transformation—moving the EHS profession into the spotlight of digital transformation more than ever.
Within this spotlight, however, there’s still a hesitancy among veteran employees in EHS roles to scrap traditional business practices, including manual paperwork and spreadsheets, or learning new technologies. Routine is what feels most familiar, but for safety professionals today, this can be a recipe for disaster, especially for compliance reporting. Data for Tier II and incident reports requires a high level of accuracy that traditional practices can’t always provide. The chances of human error in manual data collection and reporting processes are simply too high.
In most tech adoption plans, hesitancy among teams is a common occurrence. To adopt new innovations within an organization, its employees must have a new mindset that is open and willing to accept change across various sectors—a process that’s slowly taking place within EHS. SaaS faced the same resistance when it first launched more than 20 years ago, and AI is experiencing a similar hesitancy now. In an EHS digital transformation, companies and their EHS teams must be willing to adopt new tools, technologies and processes to utilize and enhance business functions.
The younger generation of EHS professionals understands the importance of adopting a new technological mindset. They’re conditioned to the norms of using mobile devices and open to new innovations to access and manage data, collaborate and streamline day-to-day tasks. To overcome this generational barrier, older age groups must see evidence of how technology can make their workdays easier. This is where EHS digital transformation can make an impact.
EPCRA Tier II and Other Reporting
Using spreadsheets and a number of disconnected systems to manage rows of data isn’t ideal. The overall process is often unorganized and highly inefficient. It’s also time-consuming.
But imagine adopting an end-to-end technology-driven system for EHS operations, compliance and reporting that leverages the power of automation and digitalization. By doing so, EHS teams can create digital duplicates of spreadsheets that make data input and output both innate and quick. They can automate the report filing process and ensure reports get to the right agencies, in the right format and on time. And, finally, teams can ditch the spreadsheets and dodge the mundane copy-paste tasks of compiling and submitting compliance reports manually.
Along with creating digital duplicates of spreadsheets, digital transformation technology can make collecting and validating new data an instantaneous task. By having critical data for EPCRA (Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act) requirements, Tier II reports and incident reports accessible in real time, you can initiate EHS compliance trends quickly that are produced with a high level of precision.
Enhancements for reporting forms and submissions across all 50 states could see similar benefits. But first, you must consider the obstacles—the biggest one being state and local agencies that have their own portals and discrepant reporting forms and procedures. With an end-to-end compliance system, reporting forms can be housed in one location, and the system can notify you when ready to submit final reports in the correct format.
EHS digital transformation and compliance technologies work together to streamline and complement EHS reporting processes, further highlighting the positive impacts of adopting new tools and technologies.
Start with High-level Change
Companies establish environments that accommodate technologies that best suit their infrastructures. Along with these established environments are carefully cultivated cultures. As a result, mindsets can be difficult to change due to the deep-rooted traditional processes at the forefront of the organization. Because of this, many EHS compliance teams are at an organizational crossroads of change.
High-level change is essential for the early adoption of EHS digital transformation in an enterprise, organization or business. Executive level leaders of many organizations are already adjusting how they perceive compliance technology initiatives. They’re now looking at how to plan, fund, implement and gauge their effectiveness. A positive outcome of these new viewpoints is that more companies are starting to push EHS compliance programs and their technologies to their boards of directors for guidance.
In addition, organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of EHS and its contribution to long-term business success. They’re also creating EHS committees as extensions of their boards to promote and integrate lifetime thinking across organizations. In return, this helps foster better operations for a healthier environment.
Involve Passionate Talent, People and Leadership
In today’s “end-user era” of making work lives easier for employees, effective leaders prioritize engaging people who will continue to drive innovation. This knowledge creates a culture favorable to new and creative ways of thinking to encourage work that fosters innovation at the forefront.
Initiatives implemented to promote innovation must captivate the three components of automation, focus and prioritization:
Automation: When infrastructure doesn’t act as an inhibitor, innovation is more straightforward. Ensure that people are familiar with automation to support and expedite the innovation process when possible. Digital transformation and cloud technologies are commonly used to drive automation.
Focus: How leadership plans and carries out an innovation strategy, measures success and inspires team members in line with the business’s objectives requires consistent focus. Leaders must promote employee understanding of organizational goals and align their focus on the business objectives at hand.
Prioritization: Prioritization is essential to keep teams (and EHS compliance management teams) on the right track where the cross-functional power of organizations are involved. Information technology (IT) is ongoing and requires leaders to prioritize innovation amid competing IT and EHS projects.
Getting the right talent in place to spearhead innovation efforts at the development level is just as important as the role of executive leadership. EHS is championed by having talent advance innovation agendas forward.
While most EHS team members aren’t tasked with having the final say on innovation initiatives, managers and specialists should certainly lend their inputs. Technology investment decisions are typically made at the director and executive level, but EHS workers can contribute their technical expertise and problem-solving skills to participate in decisions from a user perspective.
Front-line EHS staff feel most empowered by expanding their decision-making authority. With their knowledge and experience as technology users, EHS staff can determine when new digital transformation tools for data mining should be introduced, for instance, and decide which users should test it. Or, in another example, they can identify and implement improvements in a process created by EHS digital transformation practices. In this case, a company needs to reduce risk aversion by reinforcing similar successes—and even failures.
Take Risks in Promoting Innovation
Failure is an essential component of the innovation process. With failure comes the adoption of new concepts, iteration and learning experiences. Adopting new technologies requires taking risks and testing unique ideas. It also requires both a collective mindset and a culture that is willing to accept failure just as much as success. When organizations estimate innovation investments, they must weigh the risks accordingly. To keep these considered risks in check, organizations must test new technologies and concepts diligently. EHS digital transformation and SaaS enable EHS teams and their organizations to do so.
So, where can an organization overcome obstacles and shift team mindsets?
- Implementing a strategy to drive and measure success.
- Prioritizing solving EHS compliance challenges and getting executive level buy-in.
- Establishing the EHS digital transformation process timeframe.
- Aiming for quick solutions and reasonable results.
- Customizing your innovations to the most complex issues and working downward from there.
A recent Harvard Business Review survey showed that 63% of employees report “cultural change” as the most significant deterrent of digital transformation. While adopting new mindsets among veteran employees still has a long way to go, EHS digital transformation is leading the charge in showcasing the benefits of technological advancements to simplify work lives and ensure efficiencies in environmental compliance.
Megan Walters is the VP of compliance & customer success at Encamp, a provider of EHS compliance software, after having previously served as the company’s senior environmental scientist.